Decoding meat & egg labels

All natural. Organic. Grass fed. Pasture raised. 

There are so many different labels that get slapped on foods, especially meat, eggs, and poultry, and it can be difficult to know what everything means and more importantly, what you should buy. There are some labels that do not have any legal standard and are not regulated, while there are others that have strict standards. Below I outline some of the more common labels and tell you what to look for when you are shopping.

Two notes -

1. I tried to incorporate environmental and sustainable considerations as well as health considerations.

2. This is just an informational guide that does not take into account what you have access to. Buy the best that you can find that is within your individual budget. 

Eggs & Poultry

All natural: a meaningless term when it comes to meat, eggs or poultry, no regulation, pure marketing term

Cage free: only applies to birds raised for eggs, does not mean that they have access to the outdoors, only that they were not raised in cages, not verified

Free range: generally means that the animal has some sort of access to the outdoors (but doesn’t specify what that outdoor area is like or how long they have access to it)

Hormone free: meaningless when it comes to poultry, illegal to give hormones to poultry 

Antibiotic free: an important one, the poultry were not given unnecessary antibiotics 

Pasture raised: no legal standard, implies that the birds were free to roam outdoors when they wanted and eat what they wanted

Certified Humane/Animal Welfare Approved/American Humane Certified: regulated by third parties that all have slightly different requirements but generally means the birds were treated humanely and the farm met certain basic standards of care 

Organic: a USDA official label, guarantees birds only eat organic feed, weren’t given antibiotics, and are considered free range birds

What to buy?

Good: Antibiotic free, free range eggs or poultry

Better: Organic eggs or poultry 

Best: Organic, certified humane, pasture raised eggs or poultry 

Note: while eggs with these labels are relatively easy to find, I have found trying to find chicken that meets these best requirements to be extremely difficult

Meat 

Humanely raised: no official definition and not verified, meaningless term 

Hormone free: implies that the animals were never given hormones to speed up growth, not verified 

Antibiotic free: the animals were never given unnecessary antibiotics, not verified  

Pasture raised: no legal standard, implies that the animals were free to roam outdoors when they wanted and eat what they wanted

Certified Humane/Animal Welfare Approved/American Humane Certified: regulated by third parties that all have slightly different requirements but generally mean the animals were treated humanely and the farm met certain basic standards of care 

Organic: a USDA official label, guarantees the animals only eat organic grains and grass, weren’t given unnecessary antibiotics or growth hormones, and have year round access to the outdoors and pasture

Grass fed: animals were fed a diet of natural grass and not grains 

Certified grass fed: verified that animals were only fed grass throughout their lives, also requires that the animals are raised primarily on pasture and no unnecessary antibiotics were used 

What to buy?

Good: Grass fed beef or lamb, certified humane pork 

Better: Organic beef, lamb, or pork

Best: Organic, certified grass fed beef or lamb, organic pasture raised pork 

Hopefully this helps the next time you are trying to figure out what all those labels mean!